A Contrastive Study Of Lexical Cohesion In English And Chinese And Its Implications For Transalation

This study compares lexical cohesion in English and Chinese within the theoretical framework proposed by Hallliday and Hasan (1976) and discusses its implications for Chinese-English and English-Chinese translation.Firstly, some established theories of lexical cohesion are reviewed. It starts with Halliday and Hasan's model, including their classification of cohesive devices. Then some Chinese scholars'points of view, such as those of Hu Zhuanglin (1994), Zhu Yongsheng et al. (2001), Zhang Delu and Liu Rushan (2003), are compared and their merits are incorporated. Based on these theories, we classify lexical cohesion into three categories, i.e., similarity link, hyponymy link and collocation link. The definition and the function of each of the cohesive devices are discussed in detail, whose similarities and differences between English and Chinese are analyzed, illustrated with examples chosen from famous literature works.After analyzing the lexical cohesion between English and Chinese, some practical translation strategies are adopted. In fact equal reproduction of cohesive devices is ideal and very rare for differences of English and Chinese in sentences structure. Generally speaking, some practical strategies need to be adopted in translation: omitting cohesive devices in translation, adding some cohesive devices, conversion of cohesive devices and amplification for structure and logical relation and so on. So a translator should adjust methods in C-E or E-C translation.All in all, understanding the similarities and differences in English and Chinese is significant in cross--culture communication, such as in English teaching and translation. But this research still has some limits and suggestion for further research proposed in the end.